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ISTANBUL — The Syrian government yesterday warned the United States against launching unilateral attacks against the Islamic State extremist group on its territory, but Washington said it wouldn’t seek the Assad regime’s permission to defend American lives.

At the same time, the Obama administration sought to tamp down expectations of imminent airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria that top U.S. officials raised last week after the group ignited outrage by posting a video of the beheading of a captive American journalist.

“We need to confront this threat in a sustainable way,” said White House spokesman Josh Earnest, who added that President Barack Obama has made no decision on military action in Syria. “It can’t just be through brute U.S. military force.”

A U.S. defense official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, was more direct: “A strike is not imminent.”

The mixed messages over potential military operations were the latest evidence that Syria continues to bedevil the Obama administration. Some experts think administration officials are provoking public confusion about U.S. intentions there.

“There has been a remarkable lack of message discipline,” said Daniel Benjamin, who served as the State Department’s counterterrorism coordinator in 2009-12 and now is the director of Dartmouth University’s Dickey Center for International Understanding.

“There were remarkably bellicose statements heralding imminent military action, yet there are lots of spokesmen walking things back and putting different spins on things,” he continued. “It’s quite confusing.”

Speaking in Damascus, Deputy Prime Minister Walid al-Moallem said his government would “cooperate and coordinate” with any countries, including the United States, in fighting the Islamic State, which has used the Syrian territory it’s conquered as a springboard for a cross-border offensive that’s overrun roughly half of neighboring Iraq.

Although it wasn’t the first time that Syria has made such an offer, the timing was significant. It came a day after the Islamic State dealt a major blow to the Assad regime by capturing the Tabqa air force base, which gave it total control of eastern Raqqa province. It also brought the al-Qaida spinoff more military hardware and fresh momentum for advances it’s been pressing elsewhere, including on Aleppo, Syria’s commercial capital and largest city.

Al-Moallem said the regime of President Bashar Assad would have to approve any military action against the group in Syria and such action would have to be “approached in a serious manner, without double standards” and not “weaken Syria.”

Referring to a recent U.N. Security Council resolution, al-Moallem said the document “does not authorize anyone to act alone against any country.”

Al-Moallem’s hedged welcome for international assistance seemed to be directed at the Obama administration, which has launched more than 90 airstrikes against Islamic State fighters this month in northern Iraq to prevent the massacre of thousands of members of a religious minority and to defend the autonomous Kurdish region.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said, “When American lives are at stake, when we’re talking about defending our interests, we’re not looking for the approval of the Assad regime.”

She reiterated the U.S. position that the Damascus regime’s brutalities helped the Islamic State’s ascendency.